Numerical and experimental comparisons of mass transport rate in a piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet print head

The analysis of oscillatory fluid flow in a piezoelectric drop-on-demand cylindrical inkjet print head has traditionally been implemented by computationally expensive numerical methods although the print head itself consists of simple shaped components such as a cylindrical tube surrounded by a piezoelectric actuator, and a conical tube for the nozzle part. In a preliminary design stage, it is strongly desirable to save time and effort when simulating the impact of the design on the drop generation. For this purpose, approximate analytic solutions, which describe the fluid motion in an inkjet print head, are developed. Axial velocity history is fed back to a further drop formation simulation with a simplified 1D FDM model. The strengths and weaknesses of the 1D approach are identified. Despite the compactness of the present approach, the results show encouraging agreement of mass transport rate with experimental data.